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I was not really surprised when India lost the Test. Only thing I was not expecting the margin of victory. Especially when they come from placid Indian wickets and straight into this ground where the ball moves around.

But my concern is actually not about our performance but about our team selection. How do Ajit Agarkar and Ashish Nehra find places in the team?

Tinu Youhannan was with the team in the West Indies, he should have played in Jamaica and Barbados , he was in England and should have played at least at Leeds and now he is here and should have played in Basin Reserve also - all at the expense of Ashish Nehra.

Same is the case in the one dayers against the West Indies - there was enough chance to try out some youngsters like Pathan and this new lad from Mumbai, but the selectors thought they were not good enough.

I'm sure the same eleven will play in the second Test also. But I feel India should replace Nehra and Agarkar with Youhannan and Kartik. They also may fail - but at least we can say that they are inexperienced.

Prem Panicker responds: Interesting that you brought up the subject of Irfan Pathan and other young quicks - during the home series just now, that was the big bet the BCCI missed. We needed to have given some of the young, genuinely quick bowlers now in their late teens a go. Given that the pitches were flat, yes, they would have failed - but we would have a first hand idea of how good they were, temperamentally - and if even one Irfan lived up to the Test, then imagine coming here to NZ with a genuinely quick bowler who has already had an opportunity to get his feet wet, even in the ODI format - it could have made such a huge difference. That is also why I made that point about a bad card player shuffling the same cards over and over.

I watched this first Test on the internet through the Willow TV site. Just wanted to ask you a couple of questions and get your thoughts: First off, I totally agree with you -- the problem is the way our domestic system is setup. Cricketers are being groomed only to play on Indian tracks and when they do successful they go abroad and fail miserably.

This is something that definitely needs change -- I know you have been saying this forever now. However for the immediate future (the second Test), what do you suggest? Don't you think that Bangar and Sehwag do not have what it takes to open the batting on these kind of pitches. I think it would be better if we drop Sehwag down the order and bring in Das to open. Das looks to be more technically solid than Sehwag, Sehwag will be more effective down the order when the ball is not as new. Also For Bangar, move him down the order as well and move Dravid up to open. I believe that Das and Dravid have what it takes to open on these pitches.

Other than Tendulkar I do not think any other batsmen possesses the ability to open. As far as our bowling, I think Nehra should be dropped and Yohannan brought in for him as he is supposedly bowling well in the nets. So this leaves us with the following lineup: 1.Das; 2.Dravid; 3.Laxman; 4.Tendulkar; 5.Ganguly; 6.Sehwag; 7.Bangar; 8.Patel; 9.Harbajan; 10.Khan; 11.Yohannon

This may leave us a bowler short, but I think Tendulkar and Sehwag need to be tried as well as Ganguly. What do you think?

Prem Panicker responds: Faraaz, hi. You know, if this was a three or four Test series, I'd have gone along with making wholesale changes in both personnel and playing order - but with just two Tests, one of them behind us, I am not so sure. The thing is, if you now shift the entire lineup around, you unsettle everyone and in the process, add to the already enormous pressure they must be facing. My inclination is, more, to make those changes that are absolutely necessary. In that sense, I'd leave the opening combo alone for this Test. And I would tell Sehwag to stop worrying about the pitch and stuff, wait around for three, four overs to get a feel for how the ball is coming on, and then to just play his natural game - try changing the way he plays, and he will end up neither here nor there.

Actually, that is one of the points I wrote about - we did at some point find Das unable to do his job, and dropped him. How does the fact that one of his successors is found similarly unable to do his job automatically make the predecessor more capable? Also, Dravid has flat out said he does not want to open, he does not have the mindset for it - I'd be reluctant to then push our best overseas player into a job he clearly does not want to do.

That means numbers 1 through 5 remain as is. I think Laxman has, of late, slipped dramatically in the fitness department. I keep hearing all those bits about his footwork and stuff - hey, the guy does NOT depend on footwork, for him it is more timing, eye, and shot selection. But if you look at how he is moving in the field today, and how he is just that fraction late getting down in the slips, he is clearly not at peak fitness, and that in turn is affecting his batting as well. For this reason, I'd drop him and bring in Mohammad Kaif - an outstanding fielder for starters, and a guy with enormous potential with the bat, so why not give it to him when he is hungry?

Patel stays. Bajji stays. So does Zaheer. That leaves just Agarkar and Nehra - both of whom I would, given the huge importance of the game, rest and bring in Yohannan and Karthik. The former does not swing or seam the ball around much, nor is he up there in pace, but he is very disciplined, so given I have Zaheer attacking at one end, I make sure there are no easy pickings at the other. In similar vein, I would use my two spinners alternately, with the likes of Bangar bottling one end up while either Bajji, or Karthik, attacks at the other end. This means, actually, that I have two seamers, two medium pace seamers in Bangar and Ganguly capable of making the ball wobble around and bowl wicket to wicket, an orthodox off spinner, a part time attacking offie in Sehwag, a left arm spinner in Karthik, a leg break bowler in Tendulkar. Heck, all these resources - used intelligently - should do the job? But then, it won't help if you forget half the men in your side and just toss the ball around by rote.

Good to see you back in cricket with "Change in attitude needed". I just finished reading it, and could not resist writing to you a few lines about our great cricket team.

I just have one thing to say. If India needs to win a test abroad, they have to have a procedure to select players based on the conditions they play. I don't know how Agarkar is still with this team. I think we should drop Ganguly also when you play abroad.

I agree that Ganguly is a great one-day player and also a good one-day captain. Everyone knows he cannot leave a ball out side the off stump (We have seen him dropped twice in the first innings). Also his leadership qualities in a Test match..it's a big question mark. Only when Kiwis passed our first innings score, did he realize there is no point in relying on Agarkar and Nehra. I think he just continuing with what he is doing and thinking the batsmen will make mistakes.

But all other teams are not like India. They won't make mistakes that often. We need a captain who can create opportunities, not waiting for opposition's mistakes. I think Dravid should lead the team in Tests and Kaif should replace Ganguly. And also I am wondering, where is Debasis Mohanty. I think he is the best swing bowler we had in the 1999 World Cup. All of a sudden he disappeared.

Prem Panicker responds: Oh, I agree, entirely - but not much point my agreeing, when Mr Dalmiya so obviously does not. As for Mohanty, a problem is we do not believe in the horses for courses policy. What we do, we try a bloke out, say in a Toronto, he does well, we don't bother to ask okay, what kind of bowler is he, what conditions is he suited for. We give him the ball say on a flat Indian pitch, he gets tonked, we drop him and forget him. End of story.

I wanted to give some positive feedback. The positive comments that you guys provided with the first Test have been great.

Since you guys stopped doing the live commentary there was something missing for us folks who have been following cricket on Rediff since inception. I think this idea of a quick comment where they describe the game and your slant on the action is great and for me even better than the live commentary (which we can get on other sites too). Makes me stay tuned to Rediff for the entirety of the game. If it is in your control, please keep that going through the rest of the series and for the future.

Prem Panicker responds: Thanks, Bobby - we are actually experimenting with that format, and fine tuning it. It will be in place - and the comments will be more regular - during the second Test, and hopefully we will have all the tinkering done and the idea really working by the time this tour ends.

I am surprised at the shock expressed by so many about India's defeat in NZ. NZ is a much better team than we are. They are the only team to draw in Australia (did better than Aussies there, in fact), beat Windies in Windies (something we did not do) and win consistently.

Please recollect my Email before this test. I mentioned that we would not only lose, but lose huge.

I also mentioned that Shane Bond would be MOM. (Sorry, I did not count on Agarkar and Nehra outperforming our batsmen in underperforming in conditions tailor made for fast bowlers).

If Zaheer had not had a good net before this match and still bowled better than both the other two put together, if Bangar outperformed these two then something must be very wrong with them, right? They failed in South Africa, England and now in New Zealand.

If fast bowlers cannot do well in these countries, they cannot do well anywhere. Agarkar has to go. He has been around for over 5 years now and still has no 5-fer. When will he start performing? Isn't it time we moved on to Balaji and Salvi? Surely, if Nehra gets this many chances why shouldn't Yohanan get one chance in these countries? After all, he cannot do much worse than Nehra and Agarkar.

Prem Panicker responds: Your underlying point being, we need to forget those we have tried, tested and found wanting. I agree. Also, I agree with the need to find lasting solutions to the bowling problem - in fact, is why I mentioned earlier, in response to another reader, that I wish the Windies home series, both Tests and ODIs, had been used to try out the likes of Pathan and Salva. Balaji - yes well, try him by all means, but I would based on what I have seen of him be very surprised if he ever became a strike bowler, he is more in the support mould, a la Yohannan.

Hope you have the time to read yet another vent of frustration from a fan. I for once tend to disagree with the fact that the selectors or the selection is to be blamed for this defeat. See my reasoning below. In this game, I can think of at least 4-5 players who would get an unhesitating yes for selection: Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Sehwag, Laxman....

Do you think we lost the match due to the incompetence of the rest of the team, who wouldn't have got the YES? We did not lose the game because the Agarkars were in. Of course, I agree with the pitch factor which the players are not to be blamed for. The senior players in fact have been asking for sporting pitches. We need to blame one Mr. Dalmiya now and Mr.Muthiah then. Are these guys (BCCI officials) getting paid? If yes, they should be made accountable. If not, hire a bunch of MBA graduates, pay them handsomely and make them accountable. That's when we can at least hope for seeing some results.

Prem Panicker: A complete revamp of cricketing administration? Three cheers. But here's where Mr Joseph Heller comes in: The only guys who can bring that about are the Dalmiyas of this world - and coincidentally, they are the very ones who want status quo maintained. So, say about five years from now, I'll still be saying the same things - or, more accurately, providing links to past columns, and suggesting that only the dates need to be changed on those, the rest remains the same. Pity, but then that word sums up our cricket administration in its entirety.

Average cricket lover loves Indian team when they are doing good. But wants to change everything when things are upside down. Everyone wants to be a selector.

Why blame Ajit Agarkar? The lad is a match winner. Why pick on him? Because you pick on the guys who are easy to pick on. This guy has average abilities. But his attitude is like a tiger. You need Cricketers with attitude like him. Bangar is also of the same category. M. Kaif is sitting on the sidelines. We need his attitude.

You should have blamed the batsman. But having played cricket at the gully and college level I can tell you that there are bad days and good days in cricket. You really cannot blame anyone. The team played badly and lost.

Little changes can do wonders. Groom Parthiv Patel as an opener. Let Sehwag bat at Patel's position. Let Yohannan get in place of Nehra and Kaif can replace Laxman.

Prem Panicker responds: Well, if we are all content to say hey, what's the big deal, bad days come along, someone has to lose, then I have no quarrel with that. It does strike me, though, that excellence in any field comes from constant and relentless scrutiny - I wonder how successful a business would be, say, if at the end of the year it finds itself heavily in the red and the general manager says, hey, you know, not all of us can make money all the time, someone has to go bust, too. J

We would love to see your in-depth match analysis and constructive thoughts so keep writing, I guess you have not much say when the story repeats itself time and again.

I am at a loss to understand how Agarkar manages to be in the team time and again inspite of his repeated failures,don't we have any good seamers to fall back on.

Prem Panicker responds: Thanks, Sri, haven't lately had much opportunities to watch cricket full time, thanks to other assignments, but hopefully I should be a lot more regular here on in. As to Agarkar - well. put it this way, no one can find any cricketing reasons for it. If there are any non-cricketing reasons, I wish someone would come right out and say so - or it is likely to go down in history as one of those eternal mysteries, like say the secret of the Sphinx.

I read your latest December article. Your suggestion that Agarkar be dropped is laughable. Whom should we replace him with? My guess is you want some of your favorite South India candidates to join instead. Everyone has seen your favorite bowler Yohannan ( and fellow south Indian) doing precious little at India level (apart from carrying drinks). At least Agarkar got the fastest 50 ODI wickets at the international level, besides he can swing the bat, pretty well. You end the article asking aint amnesia wonderful. The answer to your question is that amnesia is wonderful for EVERYONE , not merely the Indian
captain.

Your record for amnesia speaks for itself. BECAUSE you have continuously berated Ganguly's captaincy skills for the last 2 years, although the team was very weak after the exit of the senior players involved in match fixing.

But you had amnesia as you kept quiet when India won 5 tests abroad, jointly won the ICC cup in Sri Lanka and the Natwest series in England this year .For that success, the credit solely goes to the journalists, right? Faisal is doing a pretty good job for Rediff, so please don't came back to cricket writing. We really don't miss you at all!

Prem Panicker responds: Very interesting, these guesses. I am tempted to guess, too - say, for instance, that a line I wrote about amnesia, which was meant for all of us, took on a particular, parochial connotation in your eyes and prompted this diatribe. But I'll pass. I was also tempted to ask whether, when you use 'we' it refers to some body of people whom you represent, or whether it is used the way the Queen of England uses the royal 'We'. But again. I'll pass. Season's best, to you too.

Your article is superb and blunt. Keep up the great work, and we look forward to more of your coverage of our superstars without any super results, except their bulging bank accounts.

You are absolutely right - especially about the difference between 'SUPERSTARS' and 'SUPERB RESULTS'.

I remember reading recently some interview that Sachin Tendulkar gave - he said a player (referring to himself) with more than XX runs and tests does not have to prove himself.

No wonder he scored eight runs in the first innings against a weak bowling attack. Indian players tend to rest on their past achievements until they run out of stock (and after that, as you remarked, on 'life support systems').

Mohinder Amarnath was right; the selectors are a bunch of jokers. The irony is that one bunch replaces another and we never make any progress at all.

The worst part is that these players do not even have the kind of hunger for achievement that is so visible in the Pakistani team. The Indian team has no shame or sense of purpose - they never had. Most of our wins are, well, kind of flukes - they just happened. And, imagine we lost to West Indies....

I am resigned to the fact that India can never make it big. I bet that if we play Pakistan today, we would lose most of the matches. Wasim Akram and Waqar Younus would eat the team for breakfast - Akhtar might use them for a quick snack. Good that the politicians are in the way; imagine what would happen to the famed batting line-up....

I don't really see what John Wright really achieved; we are exactly what we were earlier. We almost lost the Test series to England; we lost the one-days to West Indies, we could not win against Zimbabwe; we just scraped through in Sri Lanka and now we are losing big time in New Zealand. If he could not bring about a change in attitude in so much time, what are we paying him for? I mean, if he cannot make the players think, what is the use of having him?

Prem Panicker responds: Rather difficult to disagree with most of what you say. As to what Wright has achieved or not achieved, actually, that makes for a column in itself, will try and do one at the end of this tour.

I am sorry to say but I do not agree with your statement that merely a change in attitude will do wonders to Indian team.

The same team which can destroy the opposition in their own backyard gets decimated outside.

Its not that their attitude changes when they go to countries like New Zealand and Zimbabwe...its the pitches which change. In India right from childhood days the cricketers play on flat pitches. so after playing for so many years on such kind of pitches they are exposed to bouncy, fast pitches, which call for better eye hand coordination and reflexes.

I bet that if the same team which lost heavily is pitted against the same team of New Zealand on Indian pitches, they will do wonders and that won't be due to a change in attitude.

Prem Panicker responds: Actually, I did not say that the only change required was a change in attitude - what I did say was that the mindset had to change, first, before everything else fell into place. And I do agree that pitches are a huge part of the problem - if I am not mistaken, I did raise that point in the column you are responding to. The final point is interesting - actually, I don't at this point have access to a full international calendar, so I could be wrong here, but aren't we supposed to be hosting New Zealand next year at home? If yes, that is going to be one heck of a series - the Kiwis are a good team, excellently led, and I suspect it could be far more close run than a few other home series of recent times.

First test on a foreign tour. A bouncy and grassy wicket. Cool and windy conditions. A tear away fast bowler.

Indians either choose to bat or be put into bat. And the first four wickets fall like nine pins. It as if history repeats itself with amazing regularity as far as the Indian cricketers are concerned, when they face the first Test in a away series.

Most times Indians play the second innings better. But this time around our bowlers also contributed to the quick three day defeat by dismissing the New Zealanders quickly enough so that Indians were forced to bat again even on the third day itself, before they had recovered from the First day blows.

It is time the selectors realize that on away tours there should be a regular opening pair instead of braving their luck with the makeshift pairs like Shewag and Bangar. They are OK on Indian pitches. But on grassy and bouncy wickets they certainly have limitations and are bound to fail. The only thing that could have saved us was winning the toss and putting them into bat first. Well Sourav, I pray that you win win the toss the second time at least.

Prem Panicker responds: D�j� vu, which you speak about, was the theme of my column as well (and I think the Rediff edit team is in the process of preparing some statistical analysis of this phenomenon, which should be going up any time now). About the opening pair (or pairs, since we have tried so very many of them), I do have a point I wanted to make: If we want a settled pair of openers, then we need to identify who they are, on the basis of how well they are equipped to play away from home, and then stick with them through the home series as well. Too often, what happens is we ask regular openers to play abroad, but when we get back home, we shove them aside and ask some flat-track type to open, in the name of either experimentation, or team composition. If X is considered the opener you need abroad, then I believe you need to settle him down in that slot, you cannot then shove him aside on a home tour to allow some selectorial favorite a chance.

It's really disappointing to see the Indian team perform time and again, in such a pathetic manner as they did at Basin Reserve. After this test, I really don't believe the Indian team has in it to win a Test series.

Yes, the intentions are there but when it comes to actions on the field, we draw a blank. Losing a Test in just over two days to NZ definitely must be the lowest point in Indian cricket. Memories go back to the Durban Test of 1996-7 (100 and 66 all out) but the SA attack was definitely a class apart. Our batting stalwarts (or so they are called) have failed against the likes of Bond, Tuffey and Oram. If we cannot play an attack such as this, then I don't see how we can play a team like Aus or SA.

Everything seems a farce after such a performance. I think in Test matches abroad, we may have a few moments of glory and I think it's best to cherish those moments and forget about the result. Dravid's 76 and Zaheer's 5 for 53 were the only two rays of hope in this Test.

A question in passing - Does ICC have a right to remove Test status for a team? Maybe ICC should do this taking into account a team's performance - both home and abroad. This, I think may be a good practice to improve the overall quality of teams. However, it may not make business sense to ICC given that it wants to globalize the game.

Prem Panicker responds: Actually, there have been - from readers - lots of mail over the years suggesting that at the least, the Test nations should be split into two groups, A and B, and that promotion and relegation should apply depending on actual results. It just might lend an interesting edge to competition - be interesting to collect reader opinion on this, actually. Having said that, it will be a waste of time anyway - given the amount of money that flows into the ICC coffers thanks to Indian participation, I don't see that body moving to kill the golden goose, do you?

I totally understand that you are a really busy person, so am I, but cricket being our passion we both spare time accordingly and manage to watch matches. According to your article, you are advocating a change in attitude, an attitude different from the one they had in England, when they leveled the test series...?, an attitude different to the one in the WI...? .Why a sudden change hah? I dont say that I am contented or delighted by the fact that they leveled the series in ENG, but quoting a one Mr.Panicker..it has done better, "unlike its avatars in the past". I also agree that this defeat is really humiliating...and should never occur to us. But I am miffed at the fact that a one Mr.Panicker comes suddenly out of blue to join the press party in bashing of the Indian team.

Maybe I am wrong but I dont think you took time off your busy schedule to laud India's recent success, in the Champions Trophy, Natwest Trophy or the Test Series. I dont exactly know what you are trying to prove or say by pulling out skeletons from the cupboards that are really old, every team has its bad moments, even Australia were given a scare in the Test series and then knocked out of the one day series by the same NZ team we are playing now. Its really been a one of the better years for India touring abroad after a long time.

Again let me reiterate that I am not supporting the Indian loss in anyway, nor am I pleased with the current state of the NZ Tour. The fact is that its really "easier said than done". Its nice for me and you sitting in our NY hotels, suddenly to find time to criticize the Indian team, probably at least one of us is getting paid to do it.

I totally agree that you have more experience in writing and probably analysing cricket than me, but I just dont get what your point in that article.

Prem Panicker responds: Well, neither of us is satisfied with how things went in NZ, so that is one area of commonality, good. As to the rest - no, I did not write on the Champions Trophy or the Natwest Trophy - because I could not see those matches. As to "suddenly popping up out of the blue", may I point you to this link -- as a reminder that starting 1996 with the World Cup in India, I have been writing about every single game India has played, until the last one year or so? That I have written, during that period, of the good and the bad - so it is not like I popped up out of my box just now to laud the failure alone? I did not say we needed a change of attitude from the one in England - where did that come from? Are we both thinking of the same England tour - where the team collapsed on an absolute batting beauty, at Lord's in the first Test, against a less than Test-class attack? And in passing, I am glad you are getting paid to watch and criticize, or praise, as applicable, the Indian team - I know I am not. Nor for responding to readers' mails, either, in case you were wondering.

It has been long since you wrote something. However, I want one of you guys to mention that ex-cricketers have no right to blame this team for not winning Test series outside the sub-continent.

What series victories are we talking about here? We won in New Zealand in 68, WI in 71, England in 71 and England in 86. I would say we are on par with our previous performances. Even the odd victories were two against Australia C (during Kerry Packer), one against New Zealand, famous chase in WI, famous victory in Melbourne. India's scores used to look a bit decent even though we lost because of the presence of Gavaskar as an opener. We all need no introduction to the difference a good opener makes to the team. Besides this the introduction of 90 over per day rule has made a big difference. There are more results now than in the past. More results now means more defeats when India travels!

Cricketers like Sidhu have no right to criticize this team. He for one was choosy about his tours. At least now we have got into the habit of winning the odd match abroad. The first test match in most of the series abroad has been a disaster ever since India started playing cricket. Most of the matches were innings defeats. Mind you, in those days the teams got more time to acclimatize themselves with practice matches. Now you rarely get one.

I am not defending this team's performance. It is not different from any team that has left India's shore.

Prem Panicker responds: Actually, that is yet another of those points we have been making ad nauseum - that touring schedules need to be better thought out. No foreign team agrees to play in India without at least two, more often three, first class matches to get their eye in. Our goal though is to maximize revenues, and there is no money to be had in playing three and four day games on tour - so, we have a rushed three day affair and boom, we cut to the chase, with the result that in the first Test of an away series we are invariably undercooked. Look at the schedule that preceded our famous collapse at Durban on that South African tour, to see how, in this aspect as well, nothing has changed.


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